Current conditions in Dubuque, IA
County residents utilize the treasurer\u2019s office on the first floor of the Dubuque County Courthouse on Friday.
The Dubuque County Courthouse towers over the city.
A self-serve kiosk at the Dubuque County Courthouse is available to streamline services.
Dubuque County officials are apprehensive yet optimistic about the use of artificial intelligence at the courthouse.<\/p>\n
County residents utilize the treasurer\u2019s office on the first floor of the Dubuque County Courthouse on Friday. Already Subscribed!<\/p>\n Cancel anytime <\/span> Secure & Encrypted
The Dubuque County Courthouse towers over the city.
A self-serve kiosk at the Dubuque County Courthouse is available to streamline services.
Dubuque County officials are apprehensive yet optimistic about the use of artificial intelligence at the courthouse.
W<\/strong>hen you walk into the Dubuque County Courthouse, interacting with another person is practically a given.
Customer service is ingrained in county government. The people who answer your questions about property records or vehicle registration shouldn\u2019t be replaced by artificial intelligence, county officials said \u2014 at least not in the near future.
The distant future is less certain. The county\u2019s information technology director said that while an AI-operated courthouse might technically be possible someday, \u201cwe\u2019re decades off.\u201d
Everyone has a different perspective about the emerging technology. The one thing county officials seem to agree on is that, ready or not, AI is on its way \u2014 and the county is overdue for the conversation.
\u201cThere was a dot-com bubble in the \u201990s where a lot of investment (went) into the internet and internet companies, and kind of the same with AI, you know \u2014 the investment\u2019s there,\u201d said Dubuque County Information Technology Director Jered Shipley. \u201cI think as more use cases come out and software gets developed around that, I think it\u2019s really going to take off after that.\u201d
Dubuque County Treasurer Michael Clasen is already attuned to the possibilities of AI. He uses it \u201cprobably on a daily basis,\u201d whether for personal or work purposes, he said.
\u201cI think there\u2019s opportunity within every department to utilize AI in some form,\u201d Clasen said. \u201cYou just have to be careful about the risks in where\u2019s that information going and where\u2019s it collected and where\u2019s it saved?\u201d
Two years ago, Clasen attended a national treasurers\u2019 conference where AI was a topic of conversation. Since then, he has mulled ways to leverage the technology in Dubuque County.
Clasen is specifically looking into using AI to automatically identify anomalies in office paperwork. He calls the idea \u201cProject Transformer.\u201d
\u201cThat would save so much time, effort and energy of one of my staff people,\u201d Clasen said. \u201cThat would allow them to focus on helping constituents at the window versus there being a line.\u201d
At the same time, Clasen said he doesn\u2019t see AI threatening county jobs soon.
\u201cIt\u2019s so early on in the process with AI that there\u2019s no way that we have gotten to the point where AI could replace my staff,\u201d Clasen said.
He does believe implementing AI tools would make the department more efficient. For example, his staff spend about two hours a day balancing cash registers in the courthouse.
\u201cThat\u2019ll be something that I\u2019ll certainly be looking at, like are there ways to reduce the amount of time that they spend doing that every day?\u201d Clasen said.
For Hamad Dada and Johnny Stevenson, co-founders of Galena, Ill., business SoundSafe.ai, the technology is a given. AI is a tool just like a hammer, Stevenson said \u2014 something that makes work more efficient.
\u201cI think the issue is the learning curve of how to use the tool,\u201d he said.
Stevenson and Dada started off researching artificial intelligence as an \u201capplied solution\u201d for cities, businesses and defense. Now, they specialize in using AI to power deepfake detection and security services.
AI can also be used as a \u201cpreventative\u201d tool because of its ability to correlate information and predict future issues before they happen, which could be useful for counties and cities, Dada said.
\u201cBy the end of the decade, I think we\u2019re going to hit (a) 90% critical mass of everybody knowing that you have to have that,\u201d Dada said of AI use. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the mid-2000s where you\u2019re like, you have to know computers (and) you get a computer in every kid\u2019s hand. We\u2019re going see that in the next five years.\u201d
From an IT point of view, Shipley also sees the rise of the technology as unavoidable. The possibility of an AI-operated courthouse isn\u2019t entirely out of the question in future years, he said.
\u201cI think there\u2019s opportunity for people to learn. If they learn AI, that might be beneficial in their job (and) it\u2019ll be a force multiplier in that way. Instead of replacing you, it\u2019ll just make you more efficient,\u201d Shipley said. \u201cBut, I mean, the writing\u2019s on the \u2014 there\u2019s a reason why there\u2019s so much investment going into AI. I think, eventually, as it gets better, it\u2019ll be a matter of time.\u201d
Shipley is working on forming an AI committee to craft a countywide policy. While the city of Dubuque has an AI policy, the county does not.
\u201cIf you use any of the public AI tools, they\u2019ll store the prompts,\u201d he said. \u201cThat data is used to train models, so without any safeguards, we could be unintentionally uploading sensitive information.\u201d
That\u2019s why a policy is important, Shipley said. He\u2019s also working with Dubuque County Recorder Ann Sweeney to pilot an AI-operated auto-indexing system for documents in her office.
Like Clasen, Sweeney sees ways AI could streamline work for her staff.
\u201cI think it\u2019s an exciting technology that (offers) great promise, but we have to be really careful and deliberate about what we would be using it for and how \u2014and how that affects employees,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201c(There\u2019s) great anxiety around it but also great excitement.\u201d
Still, Sweeney said there are complexities of government work that require human brain power.
\u201cI think there\u2019s just an expectation for most people that you\u2019re going to have some human interaction that empathizes with your situation and asks the questions that you need (to) get to the bottom of some of the issues that people need help with or need some kind of assistance with through government,\u201d she said.
That interaction is at the core of the debate around implementing AI technology.
Dubuque County Supervisor Wayne Kenniker said he doesn\u2019t want to see the county automate services to the point where AI replaces people.
\u201cWe certainly don\u2019t want to turn our courthouse into a bunch of kiosks where there\u2019s no personal interaction,\u201d Kenniker said. \u201cWe still need to have people dealing with people and not turn it into an electronic store.\u201d
Dubuque County Attorney Scott Nelson agreed.
\u201cPeople are fed up with bureaucracy,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cIf you start allowing a machine to do that, oh my, people are not going to be happy.\u201d
The county leaders haven\u2019t publicly discussed its stance on the use of AI. Those conversations should be \u201cpurposely planned,\u201d Kenniker said, rather than jumping into new technology.
\u201cI think we need to start with some specifics rather than a general, \u2018What can it do for us?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI think we need to look at what we need it to do for us.\u201d
During a county supervisors\u2019 meeting in January, Kenniker brought up the idea of county officials using AI tools such as ChatGPT to streamline work. He had recently used the platform to summarize competing property tax proposals in the Iowa Legislature.
\u201cI had one of my younger sons show me how to use ChatGPT, and we turned 160 pages into two summaries,\u201d Kenniker said during that meeting. \u201cIt made it much more manageable and easier to get engaged.\u201d
Ed Raber, the county\u2019s planning and development director, said the supervisors could look into a license for extended ChatGPT use.
\u201cThose summaries and asking it to compare, that\u2019s an excellent use of AI,\u201d Raber told Kenniker.
Other county officials aren\u2019t as interested.
In the county attorney\u2019s office, Nelson said he \u201cforbids\u201d AI use for legal purposes. Not only is AI unreliable when it comes to research or drafting legal briefs, \u201cbut it also breeds laziness,\u201d Nelson said.
\u201cThere\u2019s a big difference between efficiency and just being plain lazy, too,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would be my contention: It\u2019s not about efficiency \u2014 it\u2019s about not wanting to do the work.\u201d
That\u2019s a detriment for lawyers in particular, Nelson said. He worries about AI \u201challucinations,\u201d or inaccurate results generated by the technology. An attorney could use AI to write a brief, and it might generate a legal citation that doesn\u2019t exist, Nelson said.
\u201cI shudder to think, you know, a judge using AI to find legal cases,\u201d he said. \u201cIf a judge is using that and then ends up with a hallucinated case, where does that leave us?\u201d
From the perspective of an AI company, Dada said he believes legal professionals will inevitably use the technology.
\u201cEventually, we\u2019re going to start seeing more and more of the usage of (AI tools) spill over from the casual document or email AI use (to) using it in their dockets,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re still early, but we will see judicial usage of these tools, also with decisions, evidence or containerizing these things in real life \u2014 again, correlating what makes sense with a case or not.\u201d
County officials are also wary of contracting with an outside company for AI services. Doing so would have to make sense on several levels, including financially, Kenniker said.
\u201cI think there has to be some working knowledge. I mean, yes, I messed around with ChatGPT,\u201d Kenniker said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to have (a) different level of knowledge on it. I get the whole idea of hiring someone to come in and (provide AI services), but I struggle with that just a little bit. I think there\u2019s some things that need to be done before we jump to that step.\u201d
Dubuque County Supervisor Harley Pothoff is also hesitant.
\u201cI mean, there are a lot of good applications for it, don\u2019t get me wrong, but along with that (are) pros and cons to everything you do,\u201d Pothoff said. \u201cCould it remove some employees? Yeah, it\u2019s a possibility, but do we really want to go down that road? I don\u2019t know how much of a cost savings it\u2019d be by the time you\u2019re paying for the AI.\u201d
One such company working with local governments is ValueBase, a North Carolina-based startup that offers AI-powered property valuation tools.
\u201cIt\u2019s a more efficient, fair and equitable way to value \u2014 particularly residential real estate for property tax,\u201d said Will Jarvis, the company\u2019s founder and CEO. \u201cWe build better statistical models to do that.\u201d
People are \u201cquite interested\u201d in those services, Jarvis said. Since founding the business in 2022, he works with 40 counties and cities across the U.S. and Canada.
Companies such as ValueBase reach out to Dubuque County Assessor Billie Selby, but he\u2019s not itching to bring widespread AI use to his office. He isn\u2019t worried that AI will take jobs, at least not in the near future.
\u201cI don\u2019t think that the tools are there to do that yet,\u201d Selby said.
From Jarvis\u2019 point of view, more counties and cities should utilize AI, \u201cbut government tends to be much slower to adopt these tools,\u201d he said.
There is also a statewide effort in Iowa to consolidate and streamline local government. Chief among the recommendations in a state report is a call to \u201cleverage AI for improved efficiency\u201d at the county level.
Kenniker said he sees \u201csome merit\u201d to the idea, \u201cbut I think it has to be done at the right pace to make it effective,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my eyes, it\u2019s not something we want to make mistakes at and then have to fix it.\u201d
Similarly, Dubuque County Supervisor Ann McDonough is cautious about suggestions to streamline county services with AI.
\u201cIt certainly sounds attractive,\u201d she said. \u201cWho wouldn\u2019t want greater efficiency?\u201d
But \u201cshiny bright things\u201d don\u2019t always yield the results you want, McDonough said. She believes increased AI use could prompt the creation of a data center locally \u2014 something McDonough said she\u2019s not in favor of.
Data centers house computer servers to store information for cloud-based software and to support AI expansion. Nearby in Grant County, Wis., a large group of residents has been voicing opposition<\/a> after local leaders said a developer was considering building a data center there.
Shipley said he\u2019s seeing 15% to 20% cost increases for computer storage and memory \u201cbecause of the AI data centers that are being built.\u201d
Even if you aren\u2019t using AI, he said, \u201cyou\u2019re affected by it through (the) hardware costs.\u201d
Further, McDonough said, removing human interaction from county processes would disadvantage certain residents. While a computer-operated courthouse might not faze a 30-year-old, older adults who aren\u2019t technology-minded could struggle to access necessary services.
\u201cGovernment needs to work appropriately with all those different age groups,\u201d she said.
McDonough said she believes that eventually AI use in Dubuque County \u201cwill be necessary in a positive way, (but) I don\u2019t know in my lean government structure who I would ask to even keep me apprised of those things.\u201d
As far as technological prowess, she said, \u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to find that Dubuque County leads the state.\u201d
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ISSN 2993-8384 (Online)
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